“Now or later…”

 

Shared by Breanne Smedley

“Now or later…”

I once saw a poster in a middle school gym, affixed amongst all the other typical motivational quotes and phrases.

There were the standard ones that you’d expect:

“There’s no I in Team!”

“SUCCESS: It’s the journey, not the destination.”

Then, one that said,

“Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

I’m not sure this would have resonated with me as a middle schooler.

Whenever I had a chance, I would ditch my semi-healthy lunch from home and buy what I really wanted: Cheetos, a Hostess Honey Bun, and Reese sticks.

This was definitely before the Michelle Obama healthier school lunch initiative.

I would just go on and eat what I wanted, because it didn’t make a difference at the time.

At least not that I noticed.

I could still jump on the trampoline, ride my scooter down the big neighborhood hill, and play sports without skipping a beat.

That’s the problem with paths of least resistance.

They’re easy, and we rarely see the consequences, or benefits of our decisions until weeks, months, years, or decades later.

Surely, if I would have continued to eat (basically) pure sugar for every meal for the past 18 years, my health would look much different, or my body be well on its way to disease.

Sometimes, it’s not so obvious though, to see that we are all presented with paths in life.

Path A, the path of Least Resistance.

Or Path B, the path of Great Resistance.

The catch? They’re both hard.

The beauty? We get to choose our hard.

Path A is easy at first and hard much later.

Path B is hard but pays off in the long run.

Eating clean consistently can be hard. 
So is having a chronic illness as a result of poor diet.

Waking up before 5am to practice transformational habits and routines and build a business is hard. 
So is failing to come close to my potential.

Finding time to work out is hard. 
So is not being able to perform the activities I want to in life as I age.

Facing our Inner Critic and digging into what limits us is hard. 
So is living a life being controlled by negative and destructive thoughts.

Life will always be difficult somewhere.

We don’t get to choose if we feel uncomfortable or not.

But we do get to choose to experience it now, or later.

Everything costs something.

Path A-easy now, hard later

Or Path B-hard now, stronger later

Choose your hard.

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#DaringlyResilient

#MindfullyEvolving

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